


Handprint On My Heart

by badboy_fangirl



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-18
Updated: 2013-02-18
Packaged: 2017-11-29 17:06:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/689384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badboy_fangirl/pseuds/badboy_fangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prologue to my heroine big_bang: When Damon dies, Elena finally does things she always wanted to do and says things she's always wanted to say.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Handprint On My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This started from plural_entity's prompt: _Who can say if I've been changed for the better? But, because I knew you, I have been changed for good._ Which is a line from the musical "Wicked." The title is also lifted from that song. 
> 
> **Spoilers:** Everything through 4x12, wildly AU from there.
> 
> This story has been abandoned; it will not be finished. Sorry about that!

  
_I lit a fire with the love you left behind,  
And it burned wild and crept up the mountainside_  
~from "Stars" by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals

Elena thinks of all the labels she's ever heard attributed to her throughout her 18 years: _daughter, sister, friend, excellent student, cheerleader, party girl, orphan, good girl, my brother's girl, vampire lover; **vampire**._

On a godforsaken island, she cradles Damon's lifeless body and finally understands that none of them mattered. The only one she wants is the one she'll never have now: _Damon's girl._

She only got to have it for 24 short hours, really. From that dance in front of the fireplace to making love in his bed, their one selfish day had been just that: _one day._

She remembers the hate that burned her up when she held Jeremy's dead body in the middle of her bedroom floor, and now it flares bigger, badder, more potent than ever.

"This is your fault," she accuses. "You did this."

Stefan's tear-streaked face stares into hers for long moments, seconds beating by, reinforcing the empty sound where Damon's heart should be audible. Then he just drops his head and turns away, walking into the jungle alone.

 

 

To his credit, Stefan has the good sense to realize that Damon being dead and gone does not mean Elena wants to get back together with him.

Caroline, on the other hand? Not so much.

"What?" her friend says to her a few weeks after they've come back to Mystic Falls. Nobody's cured of vampirism, Silas wasn't found, the only thing that's different is that Damon's dead.

The only thing that's different is Elena thinks about taking her ring off ten times a day to go to wherever he is, but she knows he would kill her for even thinking that. Sometimes she laughs until she cries in her room as she wonders if the sire bond reaches beyond the grave.

"I don't love Stefan anymore, Caroline," Elena says now, gritting her teeth. "I love Damon. And maybe he's not here, but that doesn't take away how I feel about him."

Caroline gives a little scoff. "So, what is your plan, then? You're going to sit around plotting murders and desiccations and carry on his work?" 

"I am planning _one_ murder, Rebekah's, and _one_ desiccation, Klaus's. Because I hate them, and they should be gone, and Jeremy and I managed to kill Kol, didn't we?"

Caroline purses her lips and just stares at Elena. Finally she shakes her head and throws up her arms in defeat. "I will help. Klaus killed Tyler's mom, and he deserves to be desiccated. And I don't want Stefan hanging around with Rebekah since he's brokenhearted about you and his brother being dead, even though he won't say that." She squares her shoulders. "So, tell me what you want me to do."

 

 

They make a plan, and Bonnie, more powerful than ever before, manages to desiccate Klaus in a matter of moments, this time without stopping a human heart. 

Elena stands, watching it happen, feeling triumphant, and she can hear Damon's voice in her head. _Mother fucking beautiful_ , he would have said. He would have crowed in delight, he would have strutted around like he'd single-handedly done it, he would have smacked a kiss on her lips in utter joy.

These are all the things they never did, but she's sure that's how it would have been. Because she knows Damon--she _knew_ Damon--so well, and she knows just what is missing in these scenes. She knows where he would have stood, and what he would have said, and how he would have made an inappropriate joke that would have made her have to smother laughter under her knuckles.

She and Bonnie drive to North Carolina, and in the dark of night, she compels a ship's captain to take them out into the Atlantic. They dump the casket with Klaus's body overboard, and she sinks down on the hardwood deck and starts crying. Bonnie wraps an arm around her and whispers soothing sounds, but mostly she just rocks her back and forth and lets her grieve.

 

 

"So, something that's weird? Jeremy can't see ghosts anymore. Or, at least, none of you guys are coming to see him. We can't decide if it's because he's a Hunter now, or what."

Elena digs at the dirt with the toe of her sneaker and lifts a bottle of whiskey to her lips, taking a generous sip. "It would be nice if someone could let us know," she whispers into the night sky.

She sits down on a nearby bench and looks at Ric's headstone. "That's not even the right date," she mutters as she examines it. She glances over at Damon's, just double checking. Of course they'd fudged the year, but the actual birth date is right. Ric's year is right, but the date is off. 

"It's been months, you know," she continues on, as if someone is really listening. "We put Klaus down; you both would have been impressed. Bonnie was awesome, of course. We let Rebekah go, though. I don't know, she's a bitch, but Klaus kinda made her that way, and she didn't want to stick around here anyway, so it was easy to just let her go. Well, for me. Caroline still isn't quite over it. But you know how that goes."

She sighs wistfully, and then takes a deep breath, holding the smell of magnolia in her chest for just a moment. Spring has arrived, and it's been unnaturally hot, as though summer was upon them already. This is why Elena is out in the middle of the night, sitting at her boyfriend's grave (the one that doesn't actually hold a body because they'd had to leave him behind when all hell broke loose on _Not_ the Cure Island), drinking and lamenting.

"Anyway, it's been months, and I don't feel any better. It's like when my parents died and I put on the happy face--fake it until you make it--only nothing is ever going to make me feel better, Damon. I miss you. I miss you so much. Am I really supposed to live like this, with _this feeling_ forever?" She takes another swallow of whiskey. "The only thing that's good is that I just do whatever I want now. I say what I'm thinking, like all the time. I swear a lot now. Well, not a lot. But when I'm mad. I feel angry a lot, so that's why I feel like I swear a lot. I don't write in my diary anymore. Stefan suggested I come here and talk to you, because he says he does it sometimes.

"I was so mad at him at first. But then I slowly came around to realize he's the only one who understands. I mean, Jeremy misses you, but not the same as I miss you. Stefan gets it, how we have to go on because you'd be so.... _pissed_ if we just gave up. But at the same time, what do you know? You've never had to live without you. You don't know."

Elena wipes at a stray tear on her cheek, and sets the whiskey aside. Honestly, the stuff tastes awful; the only way she really likes is if it's mixed with diet coke, but she could hardly bring a twelve pack, a bottle of Damon's favorite bourbon, and a red solo cup. This wasn't a fucking party after all.

She starts laughing then, but it easily dissolves into tears a few minutes later, and then she just finds herself sitting on the ground with a hand resting over the letters of his name.

Like that makes him feel closer, or something.

Nothing makes him feel closer, except when she dreams at night.

(She pretends she doesn't know that Stefan is bringing his brother to her, every night. It's their new co-dependent thing they do, and they don't talk about it. They're just dreams anyway.)

 

 

When Elena comes to, she's lying on the sofa in her living room and Matt is sitting on the ottoman staring at her. She jerks around, startled, and she can't hear anything else in the house, so Jeremy must not be home.

Matt looks furious.

"Wha?" she asks, her tongue thick. She must have drunk more of Damon's bourbon than she remembers.

"Elena," he says, shaking his head, his brow creased with sudden worry. "What the hell is going on with you?"

She sits up slowly and gives him a wide-eyed incredulous look that makes her head hurt more. "My boyfriend _died_ , Matt. Forgive me for not just being okay with it!"

"So, you're turning into him?" Matt demands, gesturing violently at her. "I found you in the cemetery, passed out on his _grave_ , Elena. I thought once we took care of Klaus, and Rebekah left town, you'd--"

"What, Matt?" she yells, interrupting him. "You thought what? I'd just get _over_ it? I'd just go back to whatever idea you have in your head about me? Let me make one thing very, very clear--this _is_ who I am! I'm not that different than who I've always been. Remember the girl who led you on and then dumped you conveniently when her parents died? Remember the girl who fell in love with not one, but _two_ vampires? Remember the girl who left a man to die alone rather than face her fears?" She stands up as fury fills her entire body. "Stop acting like I used to be someone different. I'm not that fucking different, I just don't have a filter now!"

She trembles from head to toe, and the expression on Matt's face is enough to send her into hysterical laughter once more. 

(Yeah, that was a long time coming. She can practically feel Damon's smile beaming down on her.)

Somehow she ends up in Matt's arms, sobs start tearing through her chest, and the gut-wrenching pain seems to lessen just a little.

He pets her hair and whispers, "I'm sorry," against her ear. Something breaks free in her chest. 

"No, I'm sorry," she murmurs, shaking her head back and forth against his shoulder. "I'm so, so, _so_ sorry."

She doesn't really know just what she's apologizing for.

 

 

She goes there because it's May 23rd. She's thinking about her mom and dad, and Jenna and Ric, and Damon, _always_ Damon; all the people she's lost. She just finds herself on that stretch of road. That place where she first saw him, where she first felt that spark in the pit of her stomach, when anything was still possible.

She closes her eyes and lifts her face up to the heavens. It's a moonless night, but she can feel the starlight on her skin because being a vampire makes such things possible. She focuses hard, brings the memory into clarity. She hears his voice like it's happening right now.

"Katherine?" he asks, incredulous wonder making his tone soft. She can see him, black leather jacket, blue, blue eyes, smirk firmly in place when she corrected him about her identity.

"Katherine? Oh my God, you're still here! It's a miracle!"

She's engulfed in a hard, crushing embrace, and she opens her eyes--to his _face_ \--to _Damon_. She blinks hard. It's entirely possible that she's driven herself crazy and that this is all in her head, except why would he call her Katherine?

"Damon?" she asks, her fingers finding his face carefully in the poor light. "Damon? You're alive?"

"Yes! Yes, I'm--" but Elena just covers his mouth with hers and kisses him because if this is some sort of hallucination, she does not want to ever come back from it.

His mouth is different than she remembers, a little unsure, a little weak. He kisses with the same wild abandon that he always has, but she feels like she's leading, and that's not because he's giving her room to dominate. 

It's very odd, and she pulls back to look at his face. Suddenly a million things register all at once. He's dressed strangely, clothes that are slightly too big, not to mention articles he'd never wear (camo pants and an orange t-shirt beneath some kind of flannel button up). He's looking at her with awe, but not the kind of knowledge that she's used to seeing in Damon's face when he gazes at her. And more than anything, his eyes are just a little blank, just a little _scared_ and Elena has a several important questions charge through her mind, like: _where have you been?_ and _why didn't you call and let us know you're alive?_ and _how are you alive?_ and _why did you call me Katherine?_

And then some kind of bell goes off in her head, some kind of warning alarm like on old episodes of _Lost in Space_ that her dad made her watch when she was a kid. _Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!_

She frames his face gently in her hands, and he dips his head into her palms, a tremulous smile on his lips. She says softly, "It's not Katherine, Damon. It's me, it's Elena."

His eyes widen in alarm, and he stumbles back from her, all but shaking himself free of her arms. "Who?" he asks, terror stretching across his face.

She can't put her finger on what this is, but she knows it's something very, very bad. "I'm Elena, Elena Gilbert. Don't you...don't you remember me?"

He shakes his head forcefully and looks around, as if the wooded area surrounding them might show him answers he needs. "Y-you look like someone I once knew," he says, a tinge of panic lacing his words. "I knew it was madness to think she'd still be here." He turns away from her, pacing a few steps towards Willow Creek. "I don't know how any of this is happening, and you are just one more mystery I'm trying to solve. But, wait--" He whips around to face her again. "You know me, though. You know who I am?"

Elena nods, but can't stop the tears that have started leaking down her cheeks. Realization mixed with a bizarre form of relief hits her head on, and she's already digging into her pocket for her cell phone. " _How_ do you know me?" he asks, looking at her with little more than curiosity. There is no affection there, only hope that she can help.

She wants to answer, _I'm the girl who loves you,_ but that seems terrible given that he apparently has no idea who she is. "I know Stefan, too," she offers instead and his face lights up.

"How is Stefan..." he starts to ask and then he just shakes his head, as if he answered his own question. "Never mind. Is Stefan in Mystic Falls?"

Elena shows him her phone. "I can call him if you want?"

He steps closer to her again, and his face softens. "Why are you crying?"

Elena stifles a sob with a small laugh as she opens her contact list to find Stefan's name. "I lost someone I love," she answers. She avoids his eyes as she swings her shoulder around and puts the phone to her ear. Two rings later, Stefan's on the other end of the line, and she says, "I have someone who wants to see you. Are you at the Boarding House?"


End file.
